“And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out” (Matthew 5:29). Matthew 5:29–30 contains two of the most startling sentences in the Gospels. In words brutally plain Jesus speaks of the harsh alternatives open to a man confronted with total annihilation because of the danger presented by a treasured part of his body. Here the threat lies in the right eye and the right hand. Later, in a different context, Jesus repeats His illustration, adding the “foot” (Matthew 18:8–9; Mark 9:43–47). The language may be shocking but the situation is not far-fetched. In the days of more primitive medicine many a gangrenous limb was cut away by surgeons in order to save the life of the sufferer, and modern medicine will still counsel the same traumatic surgery when a part of the body threatens the life of the whole. Men have even been known to perform this surgery on themselves when an arm or leg, ensnared by machinery, is dragging them to their death. It is a radical step, but eminently sensible.

This passage is the place where those who staunchly affirm their confidence in the literal interpretation of all Scripture will have to take a very deep breath. There can be no question that Jesus builds His message on a truth from the world of the flesh, but it is evident from the context that His language has application to the world of the spirit (if the right eye was removed the sinner could still lust just as effectively with his left). In these grim words the true depth of change which the Son of God is demanding finds dramatic expression. In the same vein Jesus spoke of our coming to Him as a crucifixion (Matthew 16:24–25; see Galatians 2:20) and Paul provides a commentary on Matthew 5:29–30 in his words to the Colossians: “Put to death therefore your members which are upon the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire…” (3:5).

Though our Lord is not speaking here of physical mutilation which would be wholly ineffectual against the motions of the heart, we should not presume that the figurative intent of His words makes them any less intensely painful. There are “parts” of us—affections, habits, attitudes, values, relationships—which have become by long cultivation so intimately a part of our personality that their removal will make the actual excision of an eye or hand seem conservative. Most of us have spent a long time learning how to be selfish and lustful. We should not expect the end of these things to come without trauma. Shrieks of anguish may arise from somewhere within us as in penitence we apply the gospel knife. But some pain is good pain. “For he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin” (1 Peter 4:1). We can choose to avoid this suffering but our cherished lusts will destroy us like some awful gangrene of the soul.

The radical and decisive nature of this renunciation is stressed by Jesus’ instruction not only to gouge out or cut off the offending member but to cast it away. The separation is to be absolute and final, not gradual. This is a radical solution but it ought to be received with joy instead of horror. What man whose disease has given him the sentence of death without recourse would not rejoice to hear that the sacrifice of one part of his body, however dear, could save his life? Even the detailing of the wrenching pain which would ensue could not rob this delivered man of his sense of relief. The only reason that we do not receive with happiness a message of similar import for our souls is that we have not yet comprehended the full extent of our ultimate jeopardy without it. “What shall a man give in exchange for his life?”

Though Jesus could have spoken these arresting words with good purpose at any time during this section of His discourse He chose to utter them in connection with the temptation to lust and adultery. Why? Would we be wrong to conclude that He did so because kingdom citizens will know no more radical challenge to the purity of their hearts than in the matter of sensual desire? “How are the mighty fallen!” David, who yielded no ground on other battlefields, was felled easily by the subtle lure of another man’s wife. Many a mighty man of valor has been reduced to jelly by the same trial. We will be consummate fools if we do not treat this temptation with utmost gravity and walk in its presence with prayerful circumspection. In the face of the Lord’s stern warning we continue to marvel at the careless familiarity with which some married disciples treat those of the opposite sex, and the circumstantial pitfalls to which they heedlessly expose themselves. Even while many of the churches are reeling from one celebrated case of adultery to another we seem at times to have learned nothing. The context of this same metaphor as used by the Lord in the latter part of Matthew (18:8–9) and in Mark (9:43–47) suggests that one possible meaning of the offending “eye” and “hand” is an occasion of stumbling. If such is the case, we are being charged not only to remove the sinful act (whether physical adultery or adultery of the heart) but any circumstances or relationships which could easily lead to it. Paul puts it plainly: “Flee fornication” (1 Corinthians 6:18). How desperately Christians of this generation need to listen.

- “Invitation to a Spiritual Revolution,” pages 43-45